Most of us are probably shocked by social indifference to the poor. But such indifference within recent months has escalated and been transformed into a frontal assault on the poor.
For those who work in social service and advocacy programs, the problem used to be one of trying to get the attention of law makers and citizens to help alleviate poverty. Now, everyone seems to be paying attention, but with hostility and vehemence directed at those least able to defend themselves.
Maybe we should have seen it coming, but most of us were caught be surprise and now feel threatened and shocked. The current attack on the poor is replete with irony. For example, the poor are told that the solution is their personal responsibility at a time when socioeconomic conditions increasingly polarize social classes and militate against self-improvement efforts.
An unsettling irony for us is the leadership provided by the Christian Right in the campaign to blame the poor and worsen their situation Any group that claims to base their opposition to the poor on the Bible is telling a huge lie.
There is nothing wishy-washy in the Bible about the poor. Repeatedly, God’s position on the poor is stated in clear language. God’s advice and demand is that we need to work to alleviate poverty, and to do so without judging the poor. Here are two examples out of many:
Do not despoil the poor because they are poor,
or crush the afflicted in the streets, for God pleads their cause and despoils the life of those who despoil them.
–Proverbs 22:22
And God requires this kind of leadership from heads of state:
May they defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush oppressor.
For they deliver the needy who call out,
and the poor and those who have no helper. They have compassion for the weak, and save the lives of the needy.
From oppression and violence they redeem their lives.
–Psalm 72:4, 12-14
But the Bible goes even further than saying that God is for the poor. It says that God is the poor. In a remarkable passage from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says that when we feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, give clothing to the naked, take care of the sick, and visit the prisoner, we feed, welcome, give to, take care of, and visit God: “Just as you did it for the least powerful of the people, you did it to me.”
In the tough and probably devastating struggle that is ahead of us, we should be adamant in claiming the theological and moral mandate “to defend the cause of the poor” that is the centerpiece of the biblical tradition. Let us make no apology for adhering to and increasing our efforts for the poor, because to assault the poor is to assault our God.
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